News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on The Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat. Parent comment

Re:The Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat by gomox on Friday August 18, 2017 @12:44AM (#15043632)
It's an American cultural phenomenon. I've always been intrigued by the origin of it. At some point someone even invented and sold a device to prevent the person in front of you to recline their seat:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knee_Defender

I guess at some point someone popularized the notion that people reclining in front of you is a form of disrespect and it stuck in people's minds. I'm over 6ft tall and I hate coach seats as much as anyone (and living in South America, flying is usually an endeavor taking over 8 hours a pop) but I have never felt that the person reclining in front of me was wronging me in any way.

It might have to do with the usual brevity of domestic flights within the US (also leading to the colorful concept of a "redeye" flight).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat by MarkSweep on Friday August 18, 2017 @03:58AM (#15044370)
I don't know if purely American. Flying domestically in Japan, people will ask if it is OK before reclining their seats.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat by robin_reala on Friday August 18, 2017 @05:42AM (#15044802)
Same on the Shinkansen, but then that’s not surprisingly given typical Japanese levels of politeness.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat by upvotinglurker on Friday August 18, 2017 @09:31AM (#15045911)
Is the person behind the potential recliner realistically able to say "no," or is that too impolite?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat by logfromblammo on Friday August 18, 2017 @11:01AM (#15046784)
You shouldn't be directing your ire at your other passengers. The responsibility for this lies squarely with the airline, which knows full well about mean femur lengths and mean hip widths, and consciously chooses seat configurations guaranteed to be uncomfortable for a large fraction of their passengers, in order to squeeze more profit out of each flight.

If people make a fuss, and demand laws or government regulation for minimum dimensions of passenger spaces, that will establish a minimum floor on flight prices, but it will also ensure that everyone can be accommodated equally. If it's a race to the bottom anyway, it might be a good idea to build a floor at a reasonable height above rock bottom. Short and narrow people can then resent taller, fatter people for raising their fares instead of tall people getting angry about reclining seats.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat by justin66 on Friday August 18, 2017 @11:01AM (#15046786)
If there was ever an argumentum ad absurdum regarding the wisdom of where airline seating has gone over recent decades, it is the existence of that device.
[ Parent | on HN ]